A former editor of Agriculture Today, the NSW DPI's research & farm management newspaper, says the Federal Government needs to explain the policy, both in terms of how it will reduce carbon emissions and how it will get through the Federal parliament.

Ron Aggs has been reporting on climate change for many years.

He lost his job during last years NSW budget cuts when Agriculture Today was discontinued and he now works as a freelance journalist.

According to Aggs the CSIRO and DPI soil scientists established back in 2012 that while it's beneficial for farmers to increase the amount of carbon in the soil it's "preposterous to assume...that you can store enough carbon to mitigate climate change."

Storing carbon in the soil was one of the key elements of the Government's strategy to meet emissions reductions targets, although more recently the Government has been talking up the potential of forests to absorb carbon.

Scientists also found, according to Ron Aggs, that storing carbon in forests is possible but "the opportunity cost of lost agricultural land...means that it's never going to happen."

He wants the Federal Government to explain their Direct Action policy again.

"Without soil and afforestation as a plank there is no real methodology that has any substance, that has been proven, that will fill the gap of those two. "

Ron Aggs questioned Clive Palmer at a recent Press Club event about his party's position on soil carbon as his support will be required, along with a few other votes, to get the policy through the Senate.

"He said they had a working party looking at it and they hadn't had time to scrutinise it. On Tuesday his office told me they hadn't yet developed a definitive policy."

Ron Aggs is standing as a candidate in the NSW Local Land Services elections later this month.